


Sic Itur Ad Astra

by Vaecordia



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Berlin Wall, Character Study, Cold War, Dark, Historical, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Relationship Study, historical fic, implied sex, moments in time, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-18 00:19:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13670349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaecordia/pseuds/Vaecordia
Summary: (He's daring to hope.)





	Sic Itur Ad Astra

**Author's Note:**

> I spend way too much time doing character study fics for it to be healthy. But you get another one enjoy!

** I. POLARITY **

It’s too far into the morning hours for Alfred to have cared to check the time, but it’s still probably dark outside and he’s still in the same kind of numb trance he was in hours ago.

There’s a piece of paper in his hand. It’s barely months old, but the cheap paper’s gone soft from being held too long and folded too many times.

There’s a large tear - almost cuts across the flimsy paper. He refuses to even tape it back together.

He’d been angry. He wasn’t any more.

He was daring to hope.

And now, he’s slouched into the chair and sitting in front of the Teletype machines that he hates and loves. The room is still, silent.

He hates them, because they’re a direct link to his enemy.

He can’t say he loves them. He wasn’t relieved when he received the first message. He wasn’t happy. He hadn’t felt reprieved. He’d been passive and had tried to decipher the jargon the Russians had sent him.

_The sun sinking into the river Moskva, a red shadow is cast over the heart of Russia._

Not Russians. That was all Ivan. It had to be.

(He’s daring to hope.)

He… He needs them. The machines. He needs them, for the very same reason he hates them.

He’s held on to the piece of paper - Moscow, Russia’s _heart_ , that had to mean something - ever since. Everyone else thought it had been carelessly thrown away.

Alfred has every word imprinted in his mind.

Not that that seems to matter to anyone. He isn’t even sure what a difference that makes to him, but it has to be something if he’s keeping it with him.

He dares to hope when the printer whirs and paper scrapes through it, printing a single line of Cyrillic. An answer. Finally.

_I am sorry for your loss._

Alfred’s hand brushes the paper, and he stares at the words. He refuses to let himself feel them, because that would mean he’s letting himself feel hope - and he can’t admit that, no, never.

He tears the paper from the printer, and he doesn’t reply. What would he say anyway?

* * *

  **II. ZERO-SUM GAME**

The words ring in Matthew’s ears, deadly and deafening and frightening and yet so quiet.

“I have to, don’t you see?”

Natalya’s throat-tearing cry of exasperation can be heard throughout the house - the other Soviet states think little of it (they’re too used to it, too used to everything).

“You can’t win this!”

Ivan’s hand trembles as he points to the door, his silent command telling her to _leave_ , but she refuses to - she knows pain only too well, she no longers cares, she’s no longer afraid of what he might do to her. Disobedience is intolerable, she knows it, but she’s more terrified of losing him than of disappointing him. (She knows he’ll regret everything anyway, and it’s all the repentance she wants from him.) She tries, time and time again, to reach him with her words in the hopes he’ll understand; he doesn’t, and his fear, paranoia, his _obsession_ is only abundantly clear. His hand still trembles as he threatens her, the bookcase digging into her back and his fingers into her arm.

“There’s nothing to win!”

Alfred’s eyes stare ahead, a hollow gaze directed at the city outside - his home, his heart, such a familiar yet foreign city - he doesn’t recognise his citizens any more. His fingers scratch lightly at the dent in the edge of the mantelpiece. Matthew knows what’s going through his mind, and it’s the same ones that plague him every day, every night. But he knows that for Alfred, the thoughts are slowly chipping at his mind, at his ideology, at his being. Matthew has the faint outline of a quickly fading, thin, jagged scar - not so long ago, every nation had been an enemy of Alfred’s, at one point, and Matthew had been no exception. Fear is Alfred’s master, cruelty his mistress, and treason a wicked siren with her whispers of _red_ to turn every friend and ally of his against him.

“I have to.”

Though she tries, no matter how she wants to, Iryna rarely believes him any more. His words are empty, a regurgitated stream of propaganda, his voice a metallic monotone. It’s just as mechanic as his actions, nowadays. It’s the same whether he’s disassembling and reassembling his guns as when he delivers a speech, it’s the same whether he’s trying to reassure them (and himself) that it was _just a routine practice_ (because _it has to be practice_ it _can’t_ be real _not yet_ ) as when he’s signing document after another with the phone ringing continuously off the hook. Iryna can see the fatigue he masks. She can see when his right hand’s index finger begins twitching spasmodically. She tells him to sit down, but it’s useless. He’s not weak, he doesn’t need help, he has to be faultless. (A machine.)

“It is the only way.”

They’re in the British embassy of Berlin, Arthur throws down another two cards and he glares at François. Alfred’s back-and-forth, in-and-out is drawing on his nerves, but neither can bring themselves to ask him to stop. Arthur moves his hand to the desk and picks up two cards. He checks his hand, and it’s poor but he isn’t even sure what they’re playing any more. François seems more interested in the fabric covering the table rather than anything going on, the quiet is getting unnerving, and Arthur slaps his cards down on the table. He stares after Alfred who’d just crashed across the room into Arthur’s office and was now on the phone. He was debating whether to ask anything of the boy, but one look at François - who knows what he’s thinking, he’s shaking his head with eyes cast aside - tells him enough. Alfred’s shouting into the phone, and even hours later no matter how much the two Europeans have argued with him, they don’t manage to change his mind.

“I need to win.”

No one knows whether they realise that there can be no winners in this, and they dare not ask.

The implications would be too ghastly.

* * *

  **III. CONTIGUITY**

Ivan’s breath tastes of cheap wine; Alfred’s, of chain-smoked cigarettes. When Ivan kisses the corner of his mouth, Alfred’s mind pulls him away but his heart pushes him closer - he doesn’t move. Ivan’s left index finger traces down Alfred’s throat, barely there, a ghost of a touch.

America draws blood from Russia’s lips, and Russia drinks in the acrid tang. Russia’s right hand entangles in America’s hair and clenches, America growls and snarls. He all but claws through Russia’s coat, grasping, pulling, tearing, carnal and desperate.

Ivan lays Alfred onto the bed, lips caressing his throat, sometimes pausing to press a kiss against Alfred’s sighs. Alfred hooked his leg around Ivan’s hips.

America grins against Russia’s teeth, and tosses them around to put himself on top, Russia underneath. He straddles Russia with bared teeth and roaming hands, eyes taking in every inch of the man under him.

Ivan pulls him closer, but America hisses and snarls out a curse. Russia shoves Alfred off of him and grabs his wrists, and presses him deeper into the mattress.

Alfred calls for God, a prayer released in a gasp. America knows he’s forsaken, lost, damned beyond eternity, but in that moment revenge and pleasure seem much more appealing than redemption or salvation - and so he succumbs to a red anger and a black desire.

Ivan holds Alfred in his arms, burying his thoughts of a feeling he daren’t name into Alfred’s neck. Russia takes a painful pace, and the line between ecstasy and insanity blurs again. He digs his teeth into the skin in front of him.

There’s a clock ticking nearby, and it fills the stifling, silent room, every second closer to the inevitable end.

America grits his teeth, Alfred arches; Ivan sighs and Russia grips the headboard.

* * *

   **IV. COUNTERBALANCE**

It’s not the snowfall that gets to him. There’s a small, steady, drift of snow clinging to his clothes before melting into a small darker patch on the material.

It’s not the cold that gets to him - he’s gotten over the cold far too long ago. He shrugs, turns on his heel, exhales - the smoke from his cigarette mingles with the vapour from his breath.

It’s the silence that gets to him. The snow is quiet when it falls. The smoke vanishes without a sound. The rifle on his back shifts when he moves, but the only sounds are the soft glide of the weapon on the coat’s fabric and the rough twist of gravel under his boots.

And the silence falls again around him.

He stops. There’s a small light in the corner of his eye, and when he turns to look at it it’s the small flame from a lit match as on the other side of the border, his counterpart lights a cigarette of his own. The light creates bright patches and shadows on the other’s face, and Alfred swears Ivan had looked straight at him, even if at that distance it was hard to tell.

The light from the match is gone as Ivan shakes it in his hand, before the only sign of Ivan even really being there is the soft groan of snow and a gentle orange flicker from the end of the cigarette.

A rough hum breaks the silence of the Berlin night, and he whirls around on his heels to see the glare of two beams of headlights. The car pulls up to the border checkpoint, and Alfred trudges up to the car. The driver rolls the window down, and Alfred is too distracted to honestly care about whoever this man may be.

Why would he care if someone wanted to go to the other side?

It’s not his problem. Then it would be Ivan’s problem, and the more Russia has of those, the happier America is. Right?

“Passport,” he drawls, and when the driver looks confused he checks himself. “ _Ihren Reisepass, bitte.”_ The man hands it to him, and America doesn’t even take out his lamptorch to see whether it matches. _“Warum wollen Sie nach Ostberlin gehen?”_ Standard procedure, boring, he’s freezing and why did he take this shift again? He’s a nation, for God’s sake.

Right. Because he knew _Ivan_ would be there. So _he himself_ had to be there. Why was Ivan there?

Who knows, who cares?

America hadn’t even listened to the man’s answer, at this point if he’d said he wanted to smuggle uranium and nuclear plans to Russia America wouldn’t have stopped him.

Nuclear plans meant more nuclear stockpile meant more chance they’d blow each other up and faster. Meant that whatever the hell _this_ was that they were doing, right at that moment, might end sooner.

_“Geh auf.”_

The man rolls up his window the moment America gives him back his passport, and America waves for the boom barrier to be lifted. The car passes, and is stopped by Russia. America now stares intently at the car, and it takes far longer than America’s checking had taken. Finally, the car drives away, the hum fades, and the silence is there to oppress him again.

Oppress them both, because he has to face it, he’s never quite alone any more.

* * *

   **V. EQUILIBRIUM**

For a moment, there’s peace for them. It’s silent, it’s magnificent.

The Earth seems so quiet from so far away.

They don’t speak, for fear of breaking the precarious atmosphere that settled over them.

Ivan’s hand is tentatively placed on the glass, as if he could press too hard and wake up from a sleep. If this turned out to be all a dream, it probably was the best sleep he’s had in years. Home is below, all his troubles are left back on Earth, and he smiles for the first time in a decade, probably. He hears a frail breath behind him, and he turns to look at Alfred.

His eyes are swimming, and when he notices Ivan looking at him he casts his head aside. Ivan can see him blinking away the tears - but they’re not tears, really, they’re pure emotion, because the boy who’d always stood with his eyes to the stars and his feet poised to fly was finally there. He was there, in the stars, he was free. Unbound, untethered, liberated.

“Alfred.”

The name tastes odd on his tongue, it tastes of blood and cigarettes and chocolate chip biscuits.

Alfred clears his throat and turns to Ivan, his cheeks tinged slightly red. “Yeah?” His voice is raspy, and it’s quiet, afraid to shatter the moment.

Ivan debates speaking for a moment, before simply moving aside to let Alfred closer to the small, round window. Alfred stares for a minute, before grabbing onto the wall and pushing himself to the window. His hand latches onto the wall, and there’s another gentle, fragile gasp.

“It’s so…” Alfred trails off, a silence filling the cabin.

“Small?” Ivan tries.

“No.” Alfred feels suffocated by his words. “It’s so insignificant.”

And Ivan’s eyes are transfixed on the endless blue through the window, the expanses of green without borders, with no limits, with no fictitious bounds discernible to separate countries from each other - from afar, it all looked so serene, so united, so perfect.

“It is,” Ivan agrees, and it’s perhaps the first time in years they’ve agreed on anything.

There’s a slight smile at the corner of Alfred’s lip, but it’s soon wiped off by Alfred’s hand coming to chase something invisible on his cheek.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Alfred says, and Ivan’s not sure whether he’s speaking to him, to his people, to Earth.

Perhaps it makes no difference.

“I am sorry too.”

Alfred pauses, and turns to Ivan - first with eyes downcast, then up straight at Ivan, into his eyes. It’s the first time in decades they’ve really looked one another in the eyes, without a threat or taunt spilling from their mouths, without intention to hurt or injure.

There’s silence. It’s waiting for something that won’t come.

In their war of words, silence is all they have left.

Alfred leaves wordlessly.

 

They’ve made their downfall with a voiceless, stifled hope, and they strain the nothingness separating them.

**Author's Note:**

> \- “Sic Itur Ad Astra” is a Latin phrase, first written by a Roman poet, is translated as “thus one goes to the stars/such is the way to the stars”. However, in some places, it is also translated to mean “reach for the stars” or “such is the way to immortality”.  
> \- The Washington-Moscow hotline (Teletype machines) was installed in August of 1963. The first message transmitted by the Russians was a poetic description of the Moscow sunset, but sadly the exact message can’t be found so I had to improvise. I apologise for my terrible attempt at poetry. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, which is when the first official US usage is recorded. Now the fact that Alfred just pockets that answer would account for the fact that it may not have been considered an official response from the USSR. Also why there’s a reference to “An answer” to his previous message.  
> \- Contiguity: the state of bordering or being in contact with something, or in psychology the sequential occurrence or proximity of stimulus and response, causing their association in the mind.  
> \- Checkpoint Charlie is the location of the fourth section - if you do not know what that is, it was a passing point between the American zone and Soviet zone of a divided Germany. It was like passing from one country to another with control of travel documents - and good reason was needed to pass from one side to the other.  
> \- The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project of 1975, was the first joint space mission between the Soviet Union and the US, a symbol of the détente policy between the two countries. This was also the last manned US space missions until the Space Shuttles started operating 6 years later. There’s something symbolic about the last so-called “Apollo” mission (the last proper Apollo mission was already in 1972, but this one still carried the name) being one where the USSR and the US meet halfway, in space, and join for the first of a number of missions together. This mission also marked the end of the Space Race that had been going on, at this point, since 1957 (Sputnik launch).


End file.
